


blood of the lamb

by rostropovich



Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: Angst without a happy ending, Biblical References, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Romeo and Juliet References, alex isnt a bitch you guys are just mean, i love gibson so much okay, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 21:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15374049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rostropovich/pseuds/rostropovich
Summary: love at first sight, and its aftermath.





	blood of the lamb

there is death on the air. the sound of dive - bombers wailing passes over the beach like the destroying angel sent by a self - proclaimed yahweh. what will their atonement be? the bright red of nazi flags ? or just the sands of dunkerque stained with the blood of the lamb, of churchill’s sacrifice, soaked like the first tide? 

 

his uniform is still damp and his underclothes stick to his skin. at least the thick broadcloth material staves away the gritty grains of sand. alex isn’t an optimist, but he’s lived a life of discomfort. the streets of birmingham were never kind to him, and neither is anything that rests or walks upon it. there’s a bitter taste in the air there, like it’s poisoned. alex wouldn’t doubt that it is. the great obelisks of industry puff out their misery into the bleak sky. there’s blood between the bricks and the sweat of men lubricating the generators of progress. not  _ their _ progress. alex’s people only work themselves to get right back where they started. it’s purgatory. 

 

if dying a coward’s death on a beach somewhere is the price he pays to get the hell out of that winding cog, then so be it. he always knew he would never have the luxury of dying gloriously. 

 

his existence has been shrouded in ambiguity. no one has ever wanted him alive, not his parents, nor the matron in charge of him, and certainly none of the boys that lived in the orphanage. his life has been a quest for purpose. it’s a hard thing to find when the waves of poverty keep pushing him back to the beach and his aspirations are shot down by junkers. alas, he found his purpose staring at him as he thrashed out of the clawing depths of the cold, endless depths. 

 

his eyes are keen, a halo of brown, curling hair blowing across his forehead by the briny breeze. his face was made for smiling, his lips made for laughing, unlike his sullen faced companion with gaunt cheeks and eyes that have rain clouds trapped in them. alex has never seen someone so beautiful, someone so effortlessly breathtaking. he’s gasping for breath, but whatever respite he can manage, the man steals it away. to die here, in the water, staring up at an angel, would be more than alex could ever deserve. he feels as if he has just laid eyes on the fair daughter of lord capulet, a picture of all that is good and could be good in the bleak grey landscape of a great, sandy tomb. 

 

alex wants him. he’s not sure what that means, but that is one of the least things he has to worry about. he has to find a way off the sand. he has to find a way to survive the waves and then survive the diver bombers and then survive the u - boats.

 

they sit on the sands and look out at the bay and no matter how rational alex can force himself to think, he cannot stop the thoughts from bleeding into his mind. he cannot stop himself from glancing over at gibson, who looks on. 

 

alex has never been faced by matters of the heart before. he’s never had any room for it, nor patience, nor understanding.  _ maybe you were looking in the wrong places _ . he scoffs at the thought. he doesn’t fancy men. no, that’s strange. he’s far from being a religious man, but if there’s one part of the bible he follows, it’s that. alex doesn’t care much for the law, either, but that’s also one law that he adheres to.

 

he glances over at gibson again. he wants to feel his lips on his own. he wants to feel him smile and he wants to hear his voice intimately. alex pales and looks back at the sea.  _ that sort of thing is legal in france _ . alex scoffs again. they could run off and get married and buy a house in the suburbs with a white fucking picket fence and eat a casserole and talk about property values and sleep in a fucking bed together and fuck each other like homosexualist fucking freaks. he tries to tell himself that it doesn’t sound nice. he tries to tell himself that anything would be an improvement from this, and that he doesn’t really want it. 

 

who could love him, anyway? no respectable woman or man would marry into a family of one with a surname dealt to him at random by the government. he has nothing. he  _ is  _ nothing. alex has been insignificant since the miserable day he was born, damned to a life of absolute nothingness. he is as devoid as the sands beneath him. 

 

he’s been conditioned to fight everyone he comes in contact with. if he doesn’t assume that everyone he meets is trying to steal from him or use him or kill him, then surely he is destined for just that. some nights, when the older boys in the dorm were feeling particularly cruel, they would hold “the inquisition” as the called it. it entailed drafting younger boys to serve as the victims of “the inquisition”. they were sometimes selected at random. other times, the ones favoured by matron alice gamble were chosen. other times, they were selected by making eye contact alone. they would be wrestled down and asked questions about where they came from and how they ended up in the orphanage. all of this was on display for the other orphans, of course. if their answers were thought as being lies or even just uninteresting  _ ( _ which was often the case, for the inquisitors were sadists.  _ ),  _ they would face various forms of torture. this could be anything, from waterboarding to food restriction to fistfighting. sometimes, crueler punishments were called upon; some boys were restricted from using the loo for days on end and others were woken up every twenty minutes at night. 

 

alex was called upon once, for making good marks at the end of the school year. he was tied to a chair and, per usual, asked about his past. it was a dull story. a knock came on the door of cathedral street orphanage on the eighth june an hour or so after dusk. a boy was found on the steps with “alexander” written on his arm in ink. he retold the story and, after that, what had happened the night of his turn in “the inquisition” was lost on him. all he could remember was someone screaming in his face and then the sight of horrified boys staring and the feeling of his knuckles broken and blood spattered on his nightclothes. he never saw the boy again. for a while, he thought that he had been relocated. based on the questionings held by the coppers and the way the other boys looked at him, alex realised that was not the case. 

 

trust and kindness and  _ love _ are commodities that he has never and will never be able to afford. the world keeps taking his fucking money. he gets up from the sand and jogs to where a group of soldiers are walking to a beached ship. 

 

all alex has is the ability to demand answers all while a man’s life hangs in the balances and all the other orphans watch on in terror. he has not grown to enjoy it like the boys in the orphanage did, but perhaps he can learn. whose blood will atone for his own sins, alex wonders.


End file.
